Rivers of the World/North America

There was so much to squeeze in today!!!!! We started off with the science and social studies pre-tests. Based on watching them work, they seemed to have a better handle on the vocabulary for science and social studies than they did for the art pretest. I have to mark  them and see.

Once the pretest was finished I reviewed the continents we had learned last time. No hesitations, nobody told me states or country or city names, just rattled off the continent names! I asked them what continent we live on (response: North America). Then I asked if they knew what countries were in North America. This was a little harder. They seem to be unclear about the difference between a city, a state, a country, and a continent. These boundaries are so abstract. But finally we got the right response (United States of America, Canada, Mexico).
Cindy and I tag-teamed today. I was a bit unclear about how we were going to use the book resources to step through the people/animals/uses/problems, etc. Cindy led the rivers word splash brainstorm to see what the kids could come up with- and they did successfully generate all the topics we had hoped they would. They got a little carried away with ocean life and really wanted to show off their newfound geology science knowledge, so Cindy reined it in a little.

River word splash brainstorming

 Then I read a short book titled "Living Near a River" by A. Fowler. This book generated a lot of new vocabulary for the kids, and each page sparked a short related description as Cindy and I bounced ideas back and forth

lots of new vocabulary today!!!!

 Cindy then took over leading the kids through a river find in their atlases. There were opportunities to use some of our arts elements vocabulary about lines..thin...curved...colors, as they tried to find things on the map. Then Cindy did a picture walk through a book about the Mississippi river and the kids listened and observed for information regarding people, animals, plants, houses, uses, and problems to write notes for the post-it page of categories. We lacked time today, but I'd like the kids to use some of that information to add imagery to their world maps.

Mississippi people, animals, houses, uses, problems notes

People:Indians, cowboys, fisherman, pioneers....

 People and animals were the most popular note-taking topics. Obviously those are areas that interest this age group a great deal.

animals: beaver, buffalo, crocodiles (um-alligators?), armadillo

 There was very little time left, but my ultimate goal for the day was to get the kids to start stitching their world maps. I had them look at their paper version first to find North America, locate the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, and trace the path of the river between the 2. Then I asked them to find the same points on their fabric version. Cindy kindly printed out a transparency for me to project, and I marked and stressed vocabulary source, meander, and mouth. I passed around an example of my own embroidery for them to see and feel what the stitches should look like.

stitched Mississippi

 We quickly handed out supplies and I instructed the  kids how to mount their fabric in the embroidery hoop. I'm calling our needle magnets a "dock" this time instead of a parking spot. And we compared the needle to a boat traveling down the river from the source to the mouth. I showed how to thread the needle and knot the ends and how to do a running stitch following the path they'd drawn.

a bit of a meander

I'm amazed at how quickly and smoothly the stitching went! Perhaps because Cindy has done this with me before she felt more comfortable helping the kids get started- threading and knotting, checking that they'd done it correctly. Perhaps it seemed to go so well just because we were stitching a short line. But I only saw one kid stitch around the hoop, and everybody had nice small stitches (I had stressed tiny,tiny stitches, too)

nice small stitches

I feel very confident about stitching with these kids. Now that I've seen Cindy go through the Mississippi lesson I feel better about being able to lead our other world river lessons. If we'd had enough time today, I would have liked the kids to add images to their world maps with fabric markers or more stitching to show what they understand about the people/animals/uses etc.
I had the flipcam with me, but it's so hard to remember to document when you're in the middle of teaching!

Day 2: The Gleaner

We like this shared debriefing, so we'll continue. It's interesting to learn each of our viewpoints on what happened.

Today we started at 1:30, Friday afternoon, and the weather and the room were incredibly hot! When I entered the children were working at their centers for the first time- this is a group-independent activity. Today I saw one table working on reading and listening to themselves say poems, one group was doing First in Math on the computers, another was creating an autobiographical picture timeline, another was making a comic strip with dialogue, another was practicing reader's theatre, etc. It was great to see that Mrs O' Donnell uses artistic and creative activities to help kids learn all the time.

I started off by learning all the kids' names by table, and reviewing them as we'd run out of time in the first session.Then we began by reviewing what was learned the lesson before. "What elements of art did we learn on Wednesday" (kids responded geometric, organic, etc), Cindy showed me the Main Idea Umbrella and detail raindrops organizer the kids have been using. We drew 2 big umbrellas on the board for our 2 elements learned so far and I elicited what big idea geometric and organic falls under (SHAPES!). I then elicited LINE and supporting details thick, thin, curved, straight, wavy, etc. I explained we would learn one or 2 more elements that would help us talk about art.
At this point we got interrupted by a fire drill! Luckily I'd already been through one at Comly and was familiar with the route. While waiting outside I tried to remember their names now that they were all mixed up, not by table order. When we came back upstairs I had the kids do some breathing exercises to help them calm down and cool down from the jaunt outside and down and back up the stairs.
I asked for a helper table for passing out our pencils and sketchbooks, and Cindy helped set up our computer and projector. I played the video from artist's toolkit  for color, which shows primary and secondary colors twice. I did call and response for "Red, Yellow, Blue, Primary too, Primary Colors, Red, Yellow, Blue". I drew the main idea umbrella for Color with details Primary and the supporting details of individual color names on the board. I asked the students to find their red, yellow, and blue pencils to make their personal notes/diagrams in their sketchbooks, labeled primary colors. After checking around the room and sharing how some of the students had organized their information, I did the same for Secondary colors. I did call and response for "Orange, Purple, Green, Secondary, Secondary colors, Orange, Purple, Green", and had the students mark their sketchbooks with secondary colors.
I brought focus back to the screen to play the "Depth" clip on the artist's toolkit website. I pointed out how shapes are big in the foreground to show they are close to us, and shapes are small in the background to show they are far away from us. I played it again so the students could make note of where objects were placed in the picture and how their sizes made the space convincing. After some more questions from the students, we got ready for the next step.
I asked the students to get out a gluestick and turn to a fresh page. We'd been working with only one page visible, but I wanted them to open it up flat with two facing pages empty and with the book turned. I selected a student from my helper table and pulled out the photocopies of The Gleaner to pass out. Ms McCaffrey, our  resource support teacher reminded me I should tell them which orientation to paste the picture into their books. We passed out the copies and the students glued it in their sketchbooks. I pulled up a powerpoint for The Gleaner on the screen. I had the kids write down the title, artist's name, and date. I asked them to repeat the name after me "zhawn-franswa meelay" (Jean-Francois Millet). I compared the image info with the title and author of a book. While they wrote, I told them about Millet's life, born on a farm, had 9 kids, often painted life he saw in the countryside in France. Looking at the date we noted it was in 1857, about 150 years ago- Cindy reminded the kids about how they have been learning how to subtract years to figure out time between events. I asked them if they or I or Ms O'Donnell were alive in 1857 (Nooooo). I said we could put images into time lines and asked them if William Penn, whom they'd been studying, came before or after this picture, (before).
We looked at the color image of The Gleaners, and I asked the students what colors they saw (green, white, blue, orange, etc). I asked them what shapes they saw in the image (circles, rectangles, squares) and asked them to trace over their copy to find the shapes they saw. I explained all artworks use basic shapes for the composition, even if it's realist art. We compared realist art, something the artist really saw and tried to paint exactly to non-fiction literature, and imaginative/abstract art to fiction.
I explained that artists use a similar process as writers, starting with a sketch. I showed them Millet's first sketch, and first painting version of The Gleaners, and compared it to their writing organizer and first draft. Then I showed them Millet's 2nd and 3rd sketches for The Gleaners and explained that artists edit and change their paintings just like writers edit and change their stories. I showed a comparison of the first version and the final version and asked students to identify what was different (background up close/far away, colors are different, vertical to horizontal orientation). I asked them if both pictures tell the same story? Do they have the same Main idea? When they weren't sure I asked is it more important if what the women are DOING is the same, or that WHERE they ARE important? They agreed "What the women are doing" is the most important. One student noticed that they ARE in the same place, but that they are closer to the background in the first version, and farther away from the background in the final painting. We confirmed that the MAIN IDEA of the Gleaners was the same in both, just some of the DETAILS had changed.
I showed them an engraving Millet had made of the Gleaners to further illustrate the writing comparison. Finally I showed them a progression slide that has the sketch-first version-new sketch-final-painting-and engraving to compare with the writing process of organizer-first draft-editing-final version-publishing.
We reached the end of the session and half the class had to get ready to leave. While we waited for the bell I reviewed the information we'd covered that day. "What for elements of art do you remember now?" (color, line, shape, space), "Who remembers the title of the painting we looked at?" (The Gleaners) "Can anyone remember the artist's name?" (this was tough) I explained next time we'd be writing about the painting. Cindy suggested I check my knowledge of their names again by selecting students to get packed up to leave.

As the elements of Art lesson took longer, and the fire drill interrupted us, we got a little behind. we've chosen to add a Monday visit to next week to accomplish our writing objectives before the trips come up. We also decided to continue working on the Gleaner, to work more in depth, and perhaps not do the Quilter photograph as a writing prompt. We 'll change the Fur Traders to a narrative writing, as this matches time-wise more with what the students are supposed to be learning in their literacy standards. I may need to change the four-square I made to simplify the information. The kids are much lower level than I'm aware, and I need help making the activities more level-appropriate. This rings true with my idea that residency artists need a lot more professional training on childhood development and different learning speeds.

Cindy's Response

The lesson Marie had prepared focused in the Elements and Principles of Design, using an interactive website to enhance it. Marie's description of the sequence of events correlates exactly to my notes; I can add a few more details she left out. Marie accessed students prior knowledge at the beginning of the lesson as she explained the major 'theme' we would be exploring. She explained that she would be with the class until January, and had the students count the months from Sept. to Jan.; to give them a general idea of the length of time we would be working together.

She mentioned we would be studying 'rivers' and asked the children what they knew (accessing prior knowledge). The students mentioned that they had recently learned that there is a big river close to Philadelphia (the Delaware) and another smaller river that feeds into it (the Schuykill). They knew that Wm. Penn liked this location and decided to build a city there.

She then asked who lived in this area when Wm. Penn made this decision, and the students mentioned that 'the Lenape Indians' were there at the time.

She mentioned that not only would she be working on art lessons with them, but also on Literacy lessons, asking them if they could tell her what "literacy" means. The students answered "reading and writing".

She then explained that she would like to know what they already knew about the elements of art. She explained how they would fill in a word from the word bank on the test that fit each definition. As she slowly explained each word and definition, it became apparent that the words and definitions were above their level of understanding. We then put the pre-test on the overhead and went over each definition, explaining the definition in third grade terminology. She waited at the end of each definition to make sure each student had chosen a word that they felt might fit the best.

When this pre-assessment was complete, she handed out their journals and colored pencils. She projected the website on the board. The website demonstrated the technique of making lines with the words, "thick, thin, straight, curved, broken,wavy"and the students in turn drew in their journals a sample of each. Noticing that some were also labeling their lines, she suggested that all do the same, saying,"like we make diagrams in science".

The next section of the website illustrated the difference between 'organic' and 'geometric'. Marie followed the same procedure here, with the students listening and viewing first, then drawing a sample and labeling it.

The website provided 2 samples of artwork that contained these elements, and Marie pointed out elemnets and verbally quizzed them on what kind of line/shape the artist used. Since they had already done their own samples, they excelled at this and seemed quite fluent in identification of the taught elements. At this point, it was time for lunch dismissal.

Day 1!!! Art pre-test and Elements and Principles of Design

Cindy wrote notes too and we will be using this blog to aid in the debriefing process. As we had limited time after the first session, I decided to jot down my own view of what I did, when, why so that the memories would be fresh and ready for our postponed debriefing. On Fridays we will have more time for debriefing in person....

I came in, put my things down, and Cindy was mentioning her "behavior board". I had asked her about her classroom management for behavior/consequences the night before, and it seemed this morning was the first time since the beginning of the year she thought she might need it. So she pulled it out and explained the sticks-in-your-pocket system if students were misbehaving.

I introduced myself and and talked about how we'll be learning art and some other subjects at the same time together. I asked the kids "What other subjects do you learn in school?" (literacy, math, science, social studies, reading, etc. were answered). I also explained I'd see them twice a week until January and asked them to figure out how long that would be (4 months).

In order to learn what they already know I explained we'd be taking a pre-test. We don't have to already know any of the words. This is more of a "fun" test. Passed out the 2 sided art and fiber art pretest. read the vocabulary words in the word box together and asked them to fill in the boxes next to each definition, and guess if they don't know it. We quickly realized that many of the children were having serious difficulty reading the definitions. (The E&P defs were a bit too complicated/didn't use familiar vocab) Cindy quickly copied the test onto a transparency and set up the overhead projector. With the test shown on the board, we read the words again, and read each definition out loud, allowing time for answers to be written, rephrasing some of the definitions.

When test was complete, I said I had a "present" for the students, and they got excited. I pulled out the sketchbooks and said I was waiting for a table that looked "ready" to be the first recipients. I asked the students to write their name on the top front cover, and allowed them to choose crayon, marker, or colored pencil to do so. I readied the colored pencils I'd brought for distribution while Cindy set up the computer and digital projector.

I asked the students to open up to the first page of their sketchbook and select a pencil. I explained we'd be watching some animations of the "Elements and Principles of Design" and that they should watch each clip quietly. I explained that elements were what we use to make art and principles were how we used the elements, and that they might already know some of the words from art class.
We watched the "Line" clip on artist's toolbox twice. I pointed out a thick line and asked them to draw a thick line in their sketchbook. I said thick lines could be as thick as my finger or even as thick as my arm. Some students labeled their thick line, and so we suggested everybody label their lines as it would be like making a diagram in science class. Cindy wrote each vocab word on the board for their labels. We did the same process for "Thin", "Straight", "Curved" (and pointed out that many letters have curved line- a, c, j the students answered), and "Wavy" (I had the kids do a "Wave" like in a baseball stadium before they drew their line). As kids drew I held up some of their examples and described them "Amadea has a SHORT, THICK, BLUE line", "Emily has a LONG, THIN, RED line"
We watched the "Shape" clip and learned the difference between geometric and organic shapes. I asked the students what geometric shapes they knew (circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, octagons they answered). I said geometric shapes usually  had straight lines and edges, except for the circle. I asked the students to draw some geometric shapes on their pages, and if they only drew a circle to include some straight edge shapes too. We looked at the organic shapes and said organic means natural or from nature, like clouds, leaves, trees, animals, or our bodies, and that organic shapes often have curved and wavy lines, not all sharp and straight lines.
At the end I asked the students to return the colored pencils and stack up their sketchbooks. Lunchtime preparation business took over and I said goodbye as the kids left.

I'm pleased with the attention of the group and with how easily Cindy and I fall into a rhythm with each other. I need to ignore the "12:00" as the endtime and think more "11:50" as the end of class. I had hoped to get through a few more clips, but Line and shape were my big ones to accomplish today. The pre-test was too difficult and took longer than expected. There's a big difference between 3rd graders in September and third graders in May!